Bone and cartilage transplantations are performed in reconstruction of bone and cartilage segments in plastic surgery, traumatic surgery or after the removal of neoplastic lesions. Currently, human tissues from an autologous source, or from living or deceased donors have been used for this purpose. With the advance of stem cell research, bone and cartilage cells derived from mesenchymal stem cells are becoming cellular sources for skeletal repair.
Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) can be found in certain tissues of the body, such as the bone marrow, blood, dermis and periosteum. They possess the ability to differentiate to other types of cells, and therefore may contribute to the healing of the tissues after injuries. MSCs can be isolated and purified from the bone marrow and culturally expanded in-vitro.
Presently, the in-vitro expansion of MSCs takes place in culture medium supplemented with fetal bovine serum (hereinafter “FBS”) or with human autologous serum, or substantially similar or equivalent serum (also referred to as “serum”). However, the presence of animal or human serum in MSC cultures has certain disadvantages and limitations in view of the potential therapeutic applications of these cultures. Firstly, bovine serum, human serum, or other animal serum may contain blood born pathogens, such as viruses and mad cow prions, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (“BSE”), or the like. Secondly, bovine serum invokes antibody generation to xenobiotic proteins which may invoke immune responses in recipient patients. Thirdly, bovine serum exhibits lot to lot variations which can result in inconsistent performance.
Clearly, cell culture media containing only chemically defined substances and free of serum and xenobiotics may be highly desired for the culture of MSCs (and other cells) assuming that the inventive cell culture media and methods of utilizing the inventive cell culture media afford both expansion of cells including MSCs and further affords differentiation of MSCs in culture.